Right to Use

Note on copyright from e-mail exchange with MassGIS:

All of our data is paid for by the taxpayers and is therefore in the public domain. We do prefer to be credited though in any publications... When using MassGIS data on maps or in digital applications, source credit should be stated as "Office of Geographic and Environmental Information (MassGIS), Commonwealth of Massachusetts Executive Office of Environmental Affairs".

OpenSpace Layer

Since much of this layer was produced by digitizing paper maps, the areas frequently do not line up with the surrounding streets. The MassGIS L3 imaging layer available in JOSM can be used to refine the imported boundaries.

Hydrology

Lakes, ponds, and Wetlands were imported December 2010. Only Cape Cod and Charles River were imported by user morganwahl.

MBTA Rapid Transit Layer

Bicycle Trails Layer

Town Boundaries from Survey Points Layer

Around 201110, Calvin Metcalf imported most of this layer, and then various people edited to resolve minor issues. As of 201203, it is believed that town boundary data in OSM is in pretty good shape. (However, coastline data was not necessarily aligned with town boundary data, this was fixed by importing the offshore town boundary layer in Aug-Sep 2012, see below).

A comprehensive list of boundary relations for each town/city which incorporates the survey points layer (and the offshore layer, below) can be found at: Massachusetts/Boundary Relations.

Offshore Town Boundaries and County Boundaries

As the above survey point layer lacked the offshore boundaries, in Aug-Sep 2012 fiveisalive(on osm, edits, contrib, heatmap) and massDOT(on osm, edits, contrib, heatmap) imported the offshore boundaries only and connecting them up to the onshore town boundary and have adjusted the town relationships and county relationships, accordingly. The tags used for import are:
attribution=MassGIS and
source=massgis_offshore_town_boundary_import

The MA state boundaries has been fixed to be the outer coastal boundary of all towns/counties. Join the discussion on the Talk:Massachusetts/Boundary Relations talk page. As of early Sep 2012, there is still some checking on all relations to be done. See also: diary entry